like real people do (vii)
“about that night, the bugs and the dirt / what did you bury before those hands pulled me from the earth?” — Hozier
cw: canon-typical violence (fight scene), knives and guns, injury, acting against medical advice, general angst... this one's a doozy but the comfort is worth the hurt i promise
part vi | series m. list | part viii
pt. 7: storm
Natasha’s heart stops when she crosses from the lush green path to the front of the office.
You’re sitting on the ground, letting the rain wash over you and humming an old song she’s heard you sing with Steve. Inside, tied with what looks like an old garden hose, is a black ops gun-for-hire about twice your size. She doesn’t dwell on the body — unconscious, she notes, not dead.
You pull her attention. Because you’re covered in blood and she isn’t sure if it’s your own or not. The scene is clean, too clean for the amount of dark red staining your clothes.
“Hi, Nat.”
—
You tremble as you check the safety and flick it off. No, no, you can’t do that. You take a deep breath and force your body to calm down. Let yourself step into one of the many rooms in the back of your mind and focus on the present moment.
The door creaks open. You don’t even breathe, back pressed against the wall so the door would hide you. A man steps in, dressed in all black and dripping water on the floor. You narrow your eyes. Too tall to be Nick Fury. A limp you don’t recognize, shoulders too hunched to be Steve or Sam and too… wrong, to be Bucky. You don’t know that many other men, not who would be breaking in during the night.
Especially not after the meeting you had today.
Your usual policy of shoot first, ask questions later comes hurtling back to you. But you look at the floor, the squeak of his boot as he cautiously steps in. As he doesn’t look back.
This isn’t right. This place is sacred. Volunteers would be showing up at ten a.m. with tired eyes and coffees in hand, and all of them will surely notice the red stains on the old linoleum. Excuses flash through your mind. You could always get a carpet.
You could always call Fury and ask for a clean up crew.
But something still holds you back.
— all of this in a split second.
“Who are you?” you growl. It tastes like blood on your lips, so used to smiles and cheery helpfulness.
He whips around and doesn’t falter before throwing a punch. You dodge easily, darting around his back. He whirls on you, lunging with brute strength. Nat’s words from years ago come back to you — use it against him.
You let him back you near to the wall as you dodge kicks and narrowly avoid punches. He didn’t expect you to have a gun, obviously, because he’s only got the knife out. Your heel touches the wall. The man, lit by lightning as the room shakes, has the audacity to smirk.
You aren’t scared. You aren’t feeling much of anything, really.
He surges forward and you twist, using his momentum to kick him harder into the wall and steal his gun from his holster. You take out the mag and throw it across the room, breathing heavily with exertion. He punches, you parry. Like a sick, violent dance, each jab echoing in the bones of your arm and sure to bruise.
You slip slightly on the slick floor and curse your past self for just throwing on whatever pair of tennis shoes instead of the good ones with tread. He sweeps your leg, knocking you on your back. Something skids across the floor.
His eyes flick between you and the USB.
Oh, sure, you think. Very subtle.
Before he can reach for it, you’re up again and delivering a swift kick to his plexus. He groans, grabs your leg and pushes you off-balance, slicing into your ribs as you twist to the ground. You land in the stupid superhero pose Natasha used to do as a joke, that became a habit, one knee bent and elbow tucked up.
He turns his back and you spin to kick out at his knee, which lands with a crack against the floor. You shudder and shake yourself off, shirt sticking to your ribs where the knife cut. Skidding forward, he moves to scoop the flash drive off the ground. You dart forward, leaping off one of the chairs the volunteers never push in after a break (you’ll never nag them about it ever again), and wrap yourself around the guy, gritting your teeth as he slams you back into the wall. Your arm tightens around his neck as the barrel of your gun finds his shoulder.
“Last chance before I shoot.”
He grunts, ignoring you, and slams you into the wall so hard you see stars.
Shaking, you lurch forward, just in time to knock the USB somewhere into the shadowy corner of the room. He tries to stomp on your arm, but you roll under the table and out the other side, using it to help you stand. You lean on it for a second, exhaling harshly and extending your arm, wincing at how the joint pops.
“You always this talkative?” you quip. Your bones are buzzing. The metal of the trigger glints in the moonlight, your finger twitching where it rests.
“I received orders that Director Fury is compromised,” he says, tone clean and clipped. Almost professional, if it weren’t for his damned smirk. “And that he visited an inactive senior agent earlier today to share intel on a classified op.”
You narrow your eyes. “Show me your badge then.”
He grins. “Didn’t say they were orders from SHIELD, babydoll.”
You pull the trigger.
He collapses, midnight blue coursing through his veins. Thank god for ICERs.
You honestly forgot you had any in there.
You check the damage. A couple overturned chairs, some blood on the wall where he slammed you—
Oh. You look down, the pain finally registering as pain and not just the electric shock of combat. There’s a gash running along your side, blood oozing out slowly. You bite your lip. Not too deep, then. You lift the fabric, pressing your fingers along the cut. Shouldn’t need stitches. You’ve survived much worse.
The roar of your headache comes back full force as you bend to grab the USB which slid behind the cabinet. You grab the mop, clean up the small drips on blood and the smear on the floor where you were pushed down. You scrub at the wall, thanking Tía and whatever other gods were listening for how clean it came off, without peeling any paint.
You walk to the bathroom, eyes widening at your reflection as soon as the light flicks on. Blood soaks your side, effectively ruining your favourite green shorts.
Steve’s bike pulls up outside as you finish securing the ties on him. You check his pockets for any information and come up empty — no comms, no business cards. Just black market military gear and a nose that’s been broken and not properly set a few too many times. You kind of want to break it again.
Instead, you go outside. The night is calm. It’s a quiet street, no neon lights or party goers to speak of. The rain is still pouring, but gentle now. Like it knows you can’t handle another storm.
It’s warm. The air smells like petrichor and peat and traces of green.
You sit on the little bench next to the office, the rain quickly soaking you and washing away the blood on your hands. Nat walks up cautiously, so quiet you would have missed her if you hadn’t been expecting her. She sighs.
“Hi, Nat.”
She didn’t bring Steve. Which you’re glad of. But she does immediately call him and request backup, a clean-up crew and a medic. He shows up five minutes later in the car and doesn’t let you stand until the medic waltzes in. She assesses you with careful and clinical touches and a biomedical scanner that has Jemma Simmons written all over it. You thank her when she’s done, signing the AMA pulled up on the data pad.
“You should listen to Agent Cates. Go back to the compound, just for a night,” Steve urges. “Let them—”
“Hold me for observation?” you snort. “Yeah. I had enough of that from ages six to eighteen. My ribs are intact, my skull is fine, and the bleeding has stopped. I can take care of it from here.”
Steve frowns, crossing his arms, but doesn’t argue any further. The agents take a statement and you conveniently leave out the bit about the USB burning a hole in your chest where it rests in your bra.
You start to walk off, wrapped in Steve ‘Chivalry’ Roger’s raincoat, but a hand on your arm stops you.
“Where are you going?” Nat asks, blocking your way.
“Home,” you say, like it’s obvious. And maybe, just a little, like you don’t want to.
“Nuh-uh. Not until we get a full sweep — bugs, break-ins, etc.”
You stare her down, really just wanting to be in bed so you can pass out (or, realistically, overthink about what the night would look like if you hadn’t had an ICER stashed before the real bullets. You remember, vaguely, packing your things to leave SHIELD and move to the lovely street you call home and slipping in the dendrotoxin first. Just in case something happened. In case something triggered you or an accident were to occur, you wouldn’t hurt anyone.
It’s maddening to realize you haven’t shot your firearm since you left. Sure, you’ve practiced on targets in the basement, but not with this gun. Not with the handle molded to your fingers and grip adjusted to help the tendinitis you suffered as a teen. An original.
Nat steers you to the car, pushing you into the passenger seat. She slides in behind the wheel, waving as Steve drives off on the bike, likely to the compound to help sort this out.
“What happened?” She breaks the silence when the last of the agents have pulled away in the shiny black SUVs, leaving the two of you in the dark.
“It’s classified,” you mumble.
“I’m Level—”
“Six, yeah. It’s still classified.”
Her face contorts, like she can’t decide whether to scream or cry. She decides to hit you on your shoulder instead, jostling your ribs. You hiss in pain and she turns in the seat to face you, both arms wrapping you up tightly.
“I’m gonna start bleeding again if you keep squeezing me,” you say, muffled into her hair.
“Do you have any idea how worried I was?” she exclaims, still holding you. You try to take a deep breath and she grips you tighter. “You just hung up. Said ‘get here quick’ in that goddamn tone and hung up.”
“What tone?” you say defensively.
She rolls her eyes, swiping under them gently. You soften. She was really, truly worried.
“That one you used to use on a mission when you went radio silent. Or when you were about to do something reckless like confront the target in the middle of an art museum, unscripted,” she says.
“I had a tranq!” You look away, frowning at the visual image of fifteen-year-old you in the Musée de l’Orangerie waiting for extraction in the Nymphéas exhibit.
“No one in control knew that,” she says.
You sigh, unable to defend yourself. Your body hurts.
“I’m not as fast as I used to be,” you mutter, like it’s a secret.
Nat shakes her head. “I got here exactly eight minutes after the call dropped. I broke every traffic law. And you dispatched a guy twice your size in less than half that time,” she says, a proud smirk curling her lips. “Милыйка, you did incredible. Steve will keep us updated but for now you’re staying with me.”
She puts the car in reverse and drives away, her phone buzzing in her pocket. She ignores it. “I will not be adding texting and driving to the list of offenses, thanks.”
It’s quiet the rest of the short drive.
You feel yourself slowly sinking into unconsciousness. Not from blood loss or anything, just, you’re exhausted. Not just from the fight. The come down of an adrenaline rush didn’t used to feel like this. Like knowing too much and not enough. Like a cliff that’s crumbling and you have to decide whether to jump or run before you can’t reach the water.
You pull out your phone — message from [Unknown]:
| Gone fishing.
You’re getting a migraine. Maybe from being slammed into the wall by a black-ops gun-for-hire. Maybe from the intrigue. Either way, the phone Nick texted from is already at the bottom of a river somewhere. You want to call, or at least send a scathing message — something along the lines of “what the actual hell is wrong with you” — but there’s no point. He won’t see it, and it will only tip off digital trackers to your location.
So Nick is hiding. You wonder if there was someone like the guy SHIELD’s taking in after Fury. If he found out beforehand and ran. You’d think he would have told you. Or if he heard about you and is fleeing the city now.
He’ll be off-grid. Fishing suggests at least a week. Which leaves you on your own. Your only point of reference is the USB. As far as you know, you have no backup, no teammates, no one to turn to in regards to this mission. You aren’t even technically a SHIELD agent. You check the time.
You don’t need to respond. If he’s texting you from a burner phone, then he already knows.
You press the gold medallion hanging around your neck, watching the little blue lights pulse once, twice — then flicker out. Sending a message directly to Fury, bypassing SHIELD comms. You’re operating outside of the confines of the box you were raised in — no technical support, no compartmentalization of information. You are the compartment. You are the pillar. You’re standing alone.
The lights flash once — white — then the metal dims. It could have been a trick of the passing street lights. But it wasn’t. Message received.
| I’m in.
—
Bucky wakes to quiet commotion. He sits up, heart racing until he hears Nat, soothing and frustrated at the same time, but her words are incomprehensible. Two pairs of boots, then two pairs of bare footsteps.
Not Steve’s. Not heavy enough. Not drunk, but unsteady. Silent. Who the hell has Nat dragged in?
He reaches for the knife under his pillow on instinct. Steve gave him grief about it until he pointed out that Natasha had multiple stashed around the house, to Steve’s unsurprised dismay.
“Стукач,” she had whispered, holding back an amused grin. It made him smile.
He pads down the stairs quietly, aiming only to observe. Just to know who’s there, in case he ran into them and had to make small talk. Maybe Yelena dropped by. She’s still nursing a sprained ankle, that would explain the step pattern.
He peeks around the corner and his heart drops.
You’re laid on the couch, head propped up on the back and clutching your side. You’ve got blood running down your clothes, but it seems like you aren’t actively bleeding out on Natasha’s couch as far as he can tell. What really gets him is the bruise on your temple — already deep purple and magenta, disappearing into your hairline.
His breath catches.
And like you heard it, your eyes snap open, drawn to him immediately.
Nat’s saying something in the kitchen about frozen stir-fry versus a traditional bag of frozen peas. He doesn’t register any of it, because all he can think is that he never should have left you alone. He knew — he fucking knew — the twisted intuition bought by the super serum and decades of training had screamed at him to stay. And he didn’t listen.
But his self-deprecation vanishes as the light catches tear tracks on your face. Your arm lifts in a wave, bruised fingers extending gracefully, even while you’re in pain.
He doesn’t think twice, exiting his hiding place and nearly scaring Nat half to death as she comes back from the kitchen. She hits him with frozen stir-fry. He doesn’t flinch until he’s in front of you, kneeling on the rug, and you retract your hand at the last second before he can hold it.
Then, he flinches. His metal fingers freeze mid-air. Fresh tears burn in your eyes as recognition flashes, and you shake your head hard enough that he thinks you’ll get whiplash on top of the probable concussion.
“Trigger hand,” you say. You cross your other arm and take his, no hesitation. Nat sits on your other side, holding the make-shift ice pack to your head and muttering in Russian. He catches odd phrases — she’s scolding you. You don’t seem to be listening.
Your eyes haven’t left his. And God, it’s scary. Because you look like you can see right through him. Alert, sharp, and yet so entirely full of something soft, like relief or concern or something else he couldn’t begin to think about while you’re bleeding in the living room.
He finally drops his gaze, only to assess you. He runs his thumb over your knuckles, checking every inch of exposed skin for injury in a careful sweep. He gets caught at your temple, again, and swallows hard.
Your eyes are tired, but wide open still. Like you won’t look away from him but still expect someone to jump out from the shadows. His hand on the couch next to your thigh moves to your knee as he checks your legs and finds only scattered bruises, some old and some definitely new. There’s a line of purple circles around your calf that look like finger-indents.
He wants to ask so badly, but he doesn’t.
Not because he’s afraid to scare you, to make you relive it, because you don’t look at all scared. But because the way his heart stutters when you wince scares him.
He intertwines your fingers and your eyes slip shut. He finally glances at Nat. She’s the picture of stress — but damn, does he recognize that look. He’s seen it on himself after patching up Steve one too many times. The speed with which she’d exited earlier makes sense, all of the sudden.
This isn’t the first time you‘ve gotten in a fight and called her. Not SHIELD. Not Fury. Natasha.
His stomach twists. He should have called. He should have been there, but—
Jesus, he’s still technically on house arrest, if someone isn’t babysitting.
At least, by some force of grace, you called her.
“She took down a 200-pound guy with watered down super serum in two minutes,” Nat whispers, then she laughs, dry and infinitely amused. “Then said she’d gotten slow.”
Bucky scoffs.
“Didn’t say that,” you murmur, voice low. He exhales slowly. Your breathing is still uneven, he notes. The tremor persists, too subtle for anyone else to notice.
Natasha shifts the ice pack on your head. “Okay, honey,” she says patiently.
“She concussed?” Bucky asks, staring at your bruise like it’ll tell him who put it there. He can’t even look at the blood. He isn’t squeamish, Lord knows he isn’t, but the sight of your blood makes him a little sick with nerves.
“Not according to the field medic,” Nat says.
Bucky hums. He takes out his phone and presses the button for ‘flashlight’, a feature he only learned how to use accidentally when he couldn’t turn off the damn thing.
“Open your eyes, sunshine,” he says. You let out a strangled breath, as if opening your eyes requires the last of your strength. It does, really.
But you don’t argue. Just open your eyes. He smiles, holding up the phone.
“Already did this,” you say, but keep your eyes open as he checks each pupil. He’s not really sure what to look for. His job was always to make sure the target had a concussion. And worse.
But your gorgeous eyes are the same as always, even if the look you’re giving him — half-glare, half-resigned fondness — is new.
He sits back, schools his expression. “Well, it’s a pretty serious diagnosis,” he says gravely. You furrow your brows. His heart beats quicker, setting up the terrible line anyway.
“She’s too damn beautiful for her own good. Prognosis—” he doesn’t get finish because you hit him with a pillow. He lets it happen, because behind the green corduroy throw pillow he can hear your laugh. It’s pained, but when he tosses the pillow to Nat, you’re smiling on the other side.
“You’re a dork,” you say. With a lilting smirk, “Glad that’s three.”
He grins. Your expression shifts into surprise, then appreciation. The warm feeling in his chest returns, golden and light and entirely contrasting to the bubbling pit of worry in his gut.
“Okay, enough flirting,” Nat says dryly, taking your free hand and making you hold the ice pack.
“You got this?” she asks, and you nod. “I have a meeting at eight in the compound. I need to sleep at least a bit if they expect me not to throw a knife when it gets boring.”
“I see where Yelena gets it now,” Bucky says. He shifts onto the couch as Nat leaves, raising her middle finger at him. She presses a kiss to your nose and says goodnight, throwing Bucky a sharp look.
He doesn’t have the bandwidth to fully comprehend it at the moment. But later, he’ll realize it’s a warning. It’s ‘I told you so’. ‘I see you right now.’ ‘Don’t fuck this up.’
He wouldn’t dream of it.
—
You’re almost asleep. Bucky keeps his hand in yours, his other absentmindedly tracing shapes on your knee. You cleaned up in Nat’s bathroom, warm water washing away the red. Your shirt and shorts are ruined, but you no longer have blood sticking in the ends of your hair like evil syrup. You’d stepped out to find an oversized black tee (not Natasha’s, and definitely not Steve’s if the cedar cologne was a clue) and a pair of SHIELD sweats you gave to Nat when she slept over that she hadn’t returned. You hadn’t expected her to.
At some point you let the tiredness and pain get to you and shifted so your legs lay across Bucky’s lap, letting your head fall into the bag of frozen stir-fry like a pillow. Your lungs still shake, but you hope he doesn’t notice. Your heart has calmed, finally, beating slower as you relax into him.
“Can’t sleep here,” he says, tapping your knee. You shrug.
“I’ll be fine.”
He hums. You keep your eyes closed. Then he’s moving, untangling your hands so he can slip one arm behind your back and guide you up. You open your eyes and glare at the stairs, feeling the weight of sleep and sore from the fight in every muscle as you stand.
“What’re you doing?” you ask.
“Going to bed,” he says simply.
He helps you up the stairs, moving at your pace and murmuring in your ear — careful, how’s the pain?, attagirl. You have to try very hard not to stumble at the last one.
“It’s really not that bad, I can walk by myself,” you say. Though if you’re honest, you’re grateful for the help. You get dizzy halfway up the steps and have to grab his outstretched hand for a moment to rebalance. From then on he keeps one arm around you and the other securely in your grasp.
Bucky settles you on the bed — his bed. The guest bed.
Whatever. You have bigger things to worry about, right? Like how your head is pounding and all the lights look like stars?
You blink twice as he settles onto the floor, grabbing a blanket tossed on the ground like an afterthought.
“James,” you say. “What are you doing?”
“…Going to bed?” he says, questioning this time.
You furrow your brows. His phone charger is on the ground, too. And a paperback copy of Mockingjay, the corner of the cover curled up with a leaf drawn on the inside…
You take in a sharp breath. That’s yours.
The memory of annotating that book in a café in Croatia resurfaces; the little pen you borrowed from the manager, the smell of coffee, the hours waiting for extraction while the storm let up. He’s up in an instant, grasping your hand and searching your eyes.
“Scale of one to ten?” His fingertips ghost over your side and tears form again, but you’re not in any pain. Nat’s good meds have kicked in and you’re all bandaged up. You give the cut (gash, Bucky muttered when you called it so) seventy-two hours tops before it’s closed up and starting to really heal.
One of the only good things to come from the fire.
“I’m okay,” you whisper. “I can sleep on the couch, or with Nat. You don’t need to be on the floor.”
Your brows furrow, because you can guess that it isn’t unusual for him to pick the floor over the mattress.
“I’ll be fine, sunshine. You need rest,” he answers, settling back down on the woven rug covering the hardwood.
You want to ask how often this is his sleeping arrangement. You don’t.
“Better than cold dirt and thirteen guys packed into one little clearing,” he muses, turning out the light and smirking in a way that tells you he’ll only deflect if you keep pushing.
“Stevie wouldn’t let you cuddle? Rude,” you respond, forcing mirth into the words.
Bucky exhales, smile softening.
“Night, sunshine.”
“Good night.”
You jolt awake to a dark room. Thunder rolls outside. Bucky’s arm falls around your waist. Your breath comes quick, chest rising and falling in painful gasps. You press a hand to your ribs, lifting the shirt to check the bandage. No blood.
Bucky sits up, alert despite the shadows under his eyes.
“What is it?” he asks, already wide awake and standing, reaching up to tilt your face towards him with his hand under your chin. He looks between your eyes, searching, then over your torso.
You take a shuddering breath and lean into him, still half-asleep despite the wake-up call. Your forehead presses to his shoulder. An arm wraps around your back, rubbing circles between your shoulder blades.
“Nothing,” you say.
“Bullshit,” he whispers. “Do you need more pain meds?”
You shake your head, even though you could really use some.
“I don’t even remember what the dream was,” you whisper.
You pull away, needing to look at him. You reach up and touch his face, the calloused pads of your fingers tracing his jaw. Surfacing from nightmares in the middle of a desolate ocean, nowhere to swim to. Unmoored. You should be used to it by now.
But he’s here, and real, and not some shadow of a memory you cling to on nights when the worst of the memories keep you from falling back asleep.
And you’re on drugs and okay, fine, maybe the cut burns where it‘s stitching itself back together and your head is pounding… you should probably take more meds. But they’re bitter going down. Sue you for needing a little comfort.
It’s hard to get the words out. This is Bucky. The same guy that barely tolerates high fives. An arm around your shoulders while talking quietly about nightmares, about history, about the past is one thing. It’s safe. An excuse not to make eye contact while disclosing thoughts that feel impossible to face. Brushing fingers while you pass each other tools over garden beds, a steadying hand while you threaten to fall apart in a panic, even earlier, while you grit your teeth through the aftermath of the fight, it was different.
Asking what you want to ask is another beast entirely. Intimate in a way that makes your chest ache and jaw clench, like at any moment the comfortable balance you’ve found with him will tip, tumble off the edge, and he’ll never want to see you again. He’ll see the charred ink and blood stains in your ledger and know that you aren’t who you pretend you are. You’ll reach out and he’ll be gone.
He looks like he can see right through you.
You’ll blame it on the drugs in the morning.
The words are trapped behind your teeth, an extended hand, caught between pride and fear. But you manage, voice soft and low.
“Please hold me?”
Bucky pauses. You freeze, too. Too much. Too soon. A boundary you knew you’d cross eventually. Nat mentioned a week ago, he never lets anyone as close as he lets you. How could you take advantage of that?
Stupid, stupid! you think, already moving away, eyes darting to the door.
“Sorry, I didn’t—”
He gently stops you with a quiet hum. Without letting go of your hand, he pulls back the comforter and slides in. You follow, leaving a few inches between you, content in simple proximity. A reminder through the fog of enduring exhaustion and immediate pain, that you’re lying here in your best friend’s house and still breathing. Still tangible. His hand hovers over your skin — your temple to your wrist, featherlight.
“How’s your shoulder?” he asks.
You roll it, a small pop echoing around the space and shrug. “Feels like it usually does.”
He nods. He pauses at your wrist, his thumb sweeping across your skin.
“This okay?” he asks.
You nod. As subtly as you can, you shift closer. He notices.
“C’mere, sunshine,” he murmurs, impossibly soft. His arm curls around your waist, pulling you closer until you’re tucked against him.
You try to move away, but he squeezes you once as if to say ‘you’re good here.’
So you stay.
After a few minutes, he starts talking.
“I used to wake up with vertigo,” he says. “Still do. Felt like I was falling for decades. Never quite reached the ground.”
You look up at him. He’s got his eyes closed, the hand on your back skating along your spine, back and forth.
“Couldn’t remember the whole nightmare. Usually some version of falling from the train or jumping with no parachute. Sometimes it was the vertigo I’d get after…” he pauses. Clears his throat. “After completing my missions.”
It’s enough. You know what he means.
“Or I’d be left with little pieces of them — their eyes, the rings on their hand, what shoes they wore. And they just stayed with me. Wouldn’t go away,” he says. “After everything Hydra took from me, I still remember them.”
“Is that good or bad?” you ask.
“I don’t know,” he breathes.
You take a moment to collect yourself, then speak.
“It’s usually flames,” you begin. “The ceiling caving. And the pain.”
A pause. Quiet. He waits for you to continue.
“When I told you about my childhood, with the produce and church and stuff?”
He hums.
“I lied,” you say, shaky. His hand stutters, then continues its path. He doesn’t flinch. You don’t know why you expected him to (you do know. But this is James.)
“That was a story my mom— um, Agent McKay used to tell me,” you say. “from her childhood. She grew up in North Carolina.”
You take a deep breath.
“ My earliest memories are of the mission. I thought I was just a normal kid with two hard-working, scientist parents. It was good. I was happy, I think. But I was just… I don’t know. Set dressing.”
Bucky shifts to look me in the eye, brows furrowed. “What?”
He sounds horrified. Disgusted.
You knew you’d mess this up at some point. You just didn’t expect it to be when you were sharing a bed at Nat’s house against medical advice.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“They really did that to you?” he asks, his voice rough like it's been raked over gravel.
You frown. “No, they… did what?”
“They put you on a mission and you couldn’t even…” he sighs. “What about your family?”
You’re silent for too long.
“Right,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” you say. “You’ve only been a good thing in my life.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, metal reflecting faint light from the window.
“You were a goddamn kid,” he says.
“Take your time, babe, process,” you say, lips curling up. He peeks one eye open and glares.
“It’s not funny.”
You shrug. “Nat and Yelena laugh when I joke about it.”
He makes a strangled noise in his throat, letting out a breath in frustration.
“James, it’s okay. It’s just what happened,” you say, curling closer to him. “I did the thing where I talk to my younger self and kiss her on the head, or whatever. I survived something kind of terrible and then helped a lot of kids out of worse situations.”
“You never talk about it.”
“It’s kind of an off-putting story to most people,” you reply, matter-of-factly.
He meets your eyes in the darkness, barely loud enough to hear and says, “…Guess I’m not most people.”
The words carry weight that makes your heart ache worse than the gash in your side or the bruise deep as iris petals on your head. You can’t hold them, at least not right now. So you reach for levity. Like you always do.
“I was stabbed and he’s making fun of me,” you laugh quietly.
He shakes his head. “’M not making fun of you, sunshine,” he says, though his voice is warmed. He waits a minute. You think he’s listening to your heart, judging by how he only begins speaking when your pulse has calmed. “What happened?”
You inhale slowly, not meeting his eyes. “Mission went south.”
Bucky brings one hand to your jaw, ducking his head slightly to find you. “You were there?”
“We all were,” you sigh. “The lab collapsed. I got out.”
“How?” he asks, curiosity and something close to awe bleeding through.
You only remember flashes — suffocating heat. The golden-orange glow of fire. The smell of burning. The taste of smoke. And Dad carrying you, half-unconscious. Gunfire. A whispered apology from the one person you felt safest with. And then darkness.
Waking up in the rubble next to him, half-dead. And you… wishing you were. Or maybe you added that later. Maybe it got mixed in along the way, tinted by revisiting the past in your mind.
“Some other time?”
He nods, his hand finding your wrist and holding it gently. “Your heart’s still racing.”
He tilts your head until your ear rests over his chest. His heart beats steadily, the rhythm of a quiet song you’re beginning to learn. You close your eyes and try your best to drift off.
“Get some sleep, okay?” you say.
When you finally begin to drift off, you feel Bucky relax next to you. His lips press to the top of your head.
He murmurs something that the current of sleep carries away.
—
Bucky doesn’t sleep the rest of the night. He just listens to your breathing, shifting with you when you move. When light begins streaming into the windows, you blink up at him.
“Good morning,” you mumble.
“Morning, sunshine,” he says. You sit up, entirely too soon, if he had a say in it.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. You flinched in your sleep when he tucked your hair behind your ear and accidentally brushed the bruise. It’s lighter, he notes. Oddly lighter, for a bruise that heavy, or maybe it’s just a trick of the light.
“I’m okay. Need another one of those painkillers,” you say, raspy from sleep. “I hate pills. But I’d rather willingly take it than Nat slip it into my food like dog meds.”
“You take anything for the bruising?”
You look at him, bemused. “Should I?”
He shakes his head. “It looks okay.” He reaches up and brushes your hair back. It shocks him back to reality. You’re in his bed (well, kind of. His room, at the very least.) You’re injured. You exchanged some truths last night that he isn’t sure how to handle.
There’s nothing he can do about any of it. Except hold you. You asked him and he hadn’t even thought twice about it.
His phone buzzes.
“You gonna get that or you gonna keep starin’ at me?” you whisper. He looks you over, still not quite believing you’re okay. His phone stops buzzing.
But then yours starts up. He sits up to hold you closer. He doesn’t want to admit how good he slept last night, before you woke up, just having someone near. Maybe it’s you. You make everything a little lighter.
He doesn’t want to admit how nice it is to open his eyes and see your smile, feel you breathing, wrap his arms around you and provide comfort instead of inflicting pain.
“It’s probably Steve,” you murmur. “If I don’t answer he’ll call Nat.”
You twist to grab your phone off the nightstand, grimacing at the motion but say nothing.
“What’s up?” you greet.
He hears Steve clearly on the line. “Sam did a sweep of your house. All clear, but the lock was jimmied. Didn’t look like anyone had been inside. Nothing taken.”
“I left a file in my room, under the mattress on the window side. Is it still there?”
Steve mumbles something. There’s a crackle of comms, then, “He didn’t see it.”
You grit your teeth. “Lovely. Didn’t get to read it.”
“It’s okay, Sunny,” he exhales.
“Are you in SHIELD’s comms center?” you ask suddenly. Bucky furrows his brows and you shake your head.
Steve pauses. “Yeah, why?”
“Just checking, it’s a little noisy,” you lie easily. “We’ll talk when you get home, okay?”
Steve hums and you hang up.
“You think someone was listening?” he asks.
“Fury didn’t trust anyone but me. He’s gone fishing.” You roll your eyes. “There were people he didn’t want knowing about this assignment. Didn’t want them to have the intel. People at Level Six.”
Bucky frowns. “That’s the Avengers.”
Your jaw tenses. You sit up suddenly, hand flying to your ribs as you swing your legs over the bed.
“Where’re you going?”
“Grabbing something.”
You crouch and pull something out of one of the pockets of your shorts. He laughs.
“You still have that?”
The little black button EMP shines in your hand, glowing blue. You press it, holding up a finger and listening.
He doesn’t hear any pops of wires going offline.
“Okay,” you breathe, before he can confirm. “That’s good.”
“Can you usually hear comms going offline or just when you’re this paranoid?” he asks.
You grin. “Take a guess.”
You get ready, not saying much. Not meeting his eyes. He follows behind you, assessing and kicking himself for it. You don’t need someone observing you.
But he can’t help it.
“Do you have any computers not tracked by SHIELD?” you ask abruptly.
He blinks. “Do I look like I have any computers not tracked by SHIELD?”
You squint, looking him up and down. He’s warm all over, something about you in his shirt looking like you’re reading him like a book. You shrug.
“Can you search the internal servers for random nonsense?”
He raises one brow.
“Please?” you add.
He flicks your good shoulder as he passes. “Yes, ma’am.”
—
You’re downstairs with Nat while Bucky keeps the line busy upstairs. Nat, of course, has multiple computers, all blocked from SHIELD’s eyes.
“Perks of retirement,” she mumbles.
“You’re still active,” you point out.
She finishes typing a series of passwords, turning the computer to face you. “I think you mean, ‘thank you, Natasha, for being a technical genius and my very best friend.’”
You begin your search through Fury’s USB, smiling gently.
“Thank you, Natasha. You’re my very best friend and a technical genius and you look very cute with a birds nest in your hair,” you giggle. Her hand shoots up to fix it, checking her reflection in the fridge.
“Сучка,” she mutters.
You skim through the folders and documents, searching for keywords — location codes, dates and names. The documents are flagged with question marks in Fury’s pen, many lines crossed out and marked as dead ends. You sort through, throwing the rotten intel into a folder and frowning as the number of active documents dwindles to a frustrating four. It’s quiet as you read, Nat watching you out of the corner of her eye.
You bite your tongue to stop yourself gritting your teeth. Even these are flagged with question marks in Fury’s pen. You’re about to close the folder and curse Fury’s name when something catches your eye.
“Wait, Nat — who’s this?” You pull up a file of a woman with beautiful eyes and a grey streak of hair.
Natasha nods. “Director of the CIA.”
You stare at her. You saw her in the crowd at Bucky’s senate hearings. You pulled her file from the doc Nat gave you. But there's something sharper that you remember, something tangible… you rifle through the dusty filing cabinets pushed to the back of your mind, but can’t find it.
You google her quickly — most links are government websites, political journalism, some world news articles, but buried down at the bottom of the search page, an article from Business Insider.
“O.X.E. Corp,” you whisper.
“Looks like anything from biomedical research to weapons development,” Nat says quietly. You share a glance. Out of all the info Natasha found, Valentina caught your attention before. You can feel the gears turning, the adrenaline kick-starting your racing thoughts. You text Stark to see if he can swing an introduction and sip your coffee.
“She’s a board member,” you mutter. “Isn’t that kind of a conflict of interest?”
“It’s the United States government,” Nat says dryly. Your shrug. Fairs. “Wait, Scroll?”
Nat reads as you move the screen. Her brows shoot to her hairline. “Impeachment. Yikes.”
“So she’s got a hand in everything. Biotech, weapons manufacturing, intelligence… Sounds like a super villain if I’ve ever heard one.”
Nat shrugs. “It’s hardly ever as black and white as we wish it would be.”
“If she’s experimenting on people, then yes, I do believe it’s pretty black and white,” you mumble.
You click to another article linked in the body of text, an analysis of stock values as O.X.E. takes a chance investing in a start-up biomedical group.
“Convenient acquisition,” you sigh.
The weight of the assignment settles on you. Technically, it’s a solo op. No directives. You aren’t even an active agent. Only intel and a personal vendetta supported by a man who’s gone radio silent.
You set down the cup of coffee, suddenly feeling a pit in your stomach like tar bubbling up to the surface.
“You okay?” Nat asks, with a face that tells you she already knows the answer.
“Could I get a ride?”
a/n: hi my lovely readers!! we've got two more chapters before the mid-season break (i'm moving back to uni and need some time to get into a routine) but i'm excited to share the rest of this story with you. tbh i only have three more chapters written, so i guess we'll see where it goes together, lol. see you next thursday :)
